Supereme court warns to Centre, MCD
The Supreme Court on Friday warned the Centre and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi of contempt proceedings for not obeying the orders in respect of sealing operations of commercial establishments in over 1,500 unauthorised colonies in the capital.
A Bench of Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice D.K. Jain issued this warning to Additional Solicitor-General Vikas Singh and Sanjiv Sen, counsel for the MCD, who mentioned about the filing of applications seeking stay of the sealing operations of commercial establishments in unauthorised colonies till the Centre approved a proposal for regularising them.
The Bench told counsel, “You will invite contempt. Anything, which is unauthorised, shall be sealed. Otherwise you will face the consequences.” The Bench, however, agreed to hear the applications on Monday.
Mr. Singh told the Bench that the matter was under consideration of the Cabinet and hence the directions for sealing could be stayed. The Bench wanted to know from counsel “if that was so, why it was not done so far. You could as well bring a law.”
Mr. Singh and counsel Sanjiv Sen submitted that the sealing drive would cause hardship to over 40-lakh people dependent on these commercial establishments to earn their livelihood. They said that the Supreme Court monitoring committee, which had given directions for the sealing, had gone beyond the scope of the court’s order on sealing.